1/27/2013 This Way Out

"NewsWrap": Tens of thousands rally against anti-discrimination protections for sexual minorities in Hong Kong and against marriage equality in Paris; P.M. Julia Gillard reportedly assures the Australian Christian Lobby that religious exemptions from anti-bias laws -- including schools and hospitals -- will continue under updated federal anti-discrimination statutes, but the European Court of Human Rights rules in the case of two devout British Christians that religious belief cannot be used to justify discrimination against gays and lesbians; the Republican majority in the U.S. House raises the "debt ceiling" on defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in challenges to its constitutionality to 3 million dollars, while the out of court settlement of a class action lawsuit wins full separation pay for U.S. military personnel honorably discharged for being lesbian or gay but only given half the amount of other similarly-discharged service members; and well-known Canadian-born character actor Victor Garber comes out in the shadow of Jodie Foster (written by GREG GORDON, produced by STEVE PRIDE, and reported this week by CHRIS WILSON and JASON PROCTOR)

Veteran moviemaker JODIE FOSTER, who’s done critically-acclaimed work in front of and behind the camera for nearly five decades, finally broke her lesbian silence while accepting the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS in LOS ANGELES on January 13th. It was the first time Foster has spoken publicly about what had been an open secret to many. Nevertheless, acknowledging her sexual orientation to a worldwide TV audience during a sometimes-rambling thank you speech seemed to have been a last-minute decision

Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays – widely-known as P-FLAG – always gets some of the loudest cheers at LGBT Pride parades. It began when the group’s founding mother, JEANNE MANFORD, proudly marched with her son at New York’s Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade in 1972. Jeanne Manford died in her Daly City, California home on January 8th at the age of 92. Rachel Maddow delivered a touching eulogy on her MSNBC cable show a few days later. [www.msnbc.com]